Gateway Nominees 2010-2011

Create your own video slideshow at animoto.com.


The Compound by S.A. Bodeen
Eli and his family have lived in the underground Compound for six years. The world they knew is gone, and they’ve become accustomed to their new life, accustomed, but not happy. No amount of luxury can stifle the dull routine of living in the same place, with only his two sisters, only his father and mother, doing the same thing day after day after day. As problems with their carefully planned existence threaten to destroy their sanctuary—and their sanity—Eli can’t help but wonder if he’d rather take his chances outside. Eli’s father built the Compound to keep them safe. But are they safe—really?

Shift by Jennifer Bradbury
Imagine you and your best friend head off on a cross-country bike trek. Imagine that you get into a fight -- the cheap s.o.b. won't kick in any cash. Imagine you stop riding together.
Imagine you reach Seattle then come home alone, still p.o-ed. Imagine the FBI is now at your college dorm. Imagine finding out that your former best friend never made it home.
And imagine that he had actually been carrying over $20,000 in cash with him.
Imagine your world shifting....

The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
Twenty-four are forced to enter. Only the winner survives.In the ruins of a place once known as North America lies the nation of Panem, a shining Capitol surrounded by twelve outlying districts. Each year, the districts are forced by the Capitol to send one boy and one girl between the ages of twelve and eighteen to participate in the Hunger Games, a brutal and terrifying fight to the death – televised for all of Panem to see. Survival is second nature for sixteen-year-old Katniss Everdeen, who struggles to feed her mother and younger sister by secretly hunting and gathering beyond the fences of District 12. When Katniss steps in to take the place of her sister in the Hunger Games, she knows it may be her death sentence. If she is to survive, she must weigh survival against humanity and life against love.

Graceling by Kristen Cashore
Katsa has been able to kill a man with her bare hands since she was eight—she’s a Graceling, one of the rare people in her land born with an extreme skill. As niece of the king, she should be able to live a life of privilege, but graced as she is with killing, she is forced to work as the king’s thug.
She never expects to fall in love with beautiful Prince Po.
She never expects to learn the truth behind her Grace—or the terrible secret that lies hidden far away . . . a secret that could destroy all seven kingdoms with words alone.

Lock and Key by Sarah Dessen

The story of a girl named Ruby who is abandoned by her mother and determined to make it on her own, even---and especially---when she is sent to live with her long-lost sister in a whole new world of privilege, family, and relationships. As Ruby learns, there's a big difference between being given help and being able to accept it. And sometimes, it takes reaching out to someone else to save yourself.

The Musician's Daughter by Susanne Dunlap
Amid the glamour of Prince Nicholas Esterhazy's court in 18th-century Vienna, murder is afoot. Or so fifteen-year-old Theresa Maria is convinced when her musician father turns up dead on Christmas Eve, his valuable violin missing, and the only clue to his death a strange gold pendant around his neck. Then her father's mentor, the acclaimed composer Franz Joseph Haydn, helps her through a difficult time by making her his copyist and giving her insight into her father's secret life. It's there that Theresa begins to uncover a trail of blackmail and extortion, even as she discovers honor — and the possibility of a first, tentative love. .

Paper Towns by John Greene
Quentin Jacobsen has spent a lifetime loving the magnificently adventurous Margo Roth Spiegelman from afar. So when she cracks open a window and climbs back into his life – dressed like a ninja and summoning him for an ingenious campaign of revenge – he follows.
After their all-nighter ends, a new day breaks. Q arrives at school to discover that Margo, always an enigma, has now become a mystery. But soon Q learns that there are clues – and they’re for him. Urged down a disconnected path, the closer he gets, the less Q sees the girl he thought he knew.

Playing with Matches by Brian Katcher
A loner goes from hero to zero after dating and dumping the school outcast. When 17-year-old self-professed nerd Leon Sanders is paired for a class project with Melody Hennon, a classmate whose face has been disfigured from a childhood burn accident, he discovers they share a passion for Monty Python, The Twilight Zone and fan fiction. The two quickly fall into a comfortable relationship, despite Leon ’s reservations about Melody’s scars. But when beautiful, popular Amy Green starts giving him come-hither glances, Leon trades in love for looks, only to realize too late he may have lost his soul mate.

The Juvie Three by Gordan Korman
Gecko Fosse drove the getaway car.Terence Florian ran with the worst gang in Chicago. Arjay Moran killed someone. All three boys are serving time in juvenile detention centers until they get a second chance at life in the form of Douglas Healy. Healy is running an experimental halfway house in New York City where he wants to make a difference in the lives of kids. Things are going well, until one night Healy is accidentally knocked unconscious. Terrified of the consequences, they drop him off at a hospital and run away. But when Healy awakes, he has no memory of them or the halfway house. Afraid of being sent back to Juvie, the guys hatch a crazy scheme to continue on as if the group leader never left. They will go to school, do their community service, attend therapy, and act like model citizens until Healy's memory returns and he can resume his place with them.

The Direputable History of Frankie-Landau Banks by E. Lockhart
Frankie Landau-Banks at age 14: Debate Club. Her father's "bunny rabbit." A mildly geeky girl attending a highly competitive boarding school.
Frankie Landau-Banks at age 15: A knockout figure. A sharp tongue. A chip on her shoulder. And a gorgeous new senior boyfriend. Frankie Landau-Banks. No longer the kind of girl to take "no" for an answer. Especially when "no" means she's excluded from her boyfriend's all-male secret society. Not when her ex-boyfriend shows up in the strangest of places. Not when she knows she's smarter than any of them. When she knows Matthew's lying to her. And when there are so many, many pranks to be done.
Frankie Landau-Banks, at age 16: Possibly a criminal mastermind.
This is the story of how she got that way.

Wake by Lisa McMann
Not all dreams are sweet. For seventeen-year-old Janie, getting sucked into other people's dreams is getting old. Especially the falling dreams, the naked-but-nobody-notices dreams, and the sex-crazed dreams. Janie's seen enough fantasy booty to last her a lifetime. She can't tell anybody about what she does -- they'd never believe her, or worse, they'd think she's a freak. So Janie lives on the fringe, cursed with an ability she doesn't want and can't control. Then she falls into a gruesome nightmare, one that chills her to the bone. For the first time, Janie is more than a witness to someone else's twisted psyche. She is a participant...

Three Little Words by Ashley Rhodes-Courter
"Sunshine, you're my baby and I'm your only mother. You must mind the one taking care of you, but she's not your mama." Ashley Rhodes-Courter spent nine years of her life in fourteen different foster homes, living by those words. As her mother spirals out of control, Ashley is left clinging to an unpredictable, dissolving relationship, all the while getting pulled deeper and deeper into the foster care system. Painful memories of being taken away from her home quickly become consumed by real-life horrors, where Ashley is juggled between caseworkers, shuffled from school to school, and forced to endure manipulative,humiliating treatment from a very abusive foster family. In this inspiring, unforgettable memoir, Ashley finds the courage to succeed - and in doing so, discovers the power of her own voice.

Stealing Heaven by Elizabeth Scott
My name is Danielle. I'm eighteen. I've been stealing things for as long as I can remember.

Dani has been trained as a thief by the best - her mother. Together, they move from town to town, targeting wealthy homes and making a living by stealing antique silver. They never stay in one place long enough to make real connections, real friends - a real life. In the beach town of Heaven, though, everything changes. For the first time, Dani starts to feel at home. She's making friends and has even met a guy. But these people can never know the real Dani - because of who she is. When it turns out that her new friend lives in the house they've targeted for their next job and the cute guy is a cop, Dani must question where her loyalties lie: with the life she's always known - or the one she's always wanted.
Good Enough by Paula Yoo
How to make your Korean parents happy:
1. Get a perfect score on the SATs. 2. Get into HarvardYalePrinceton. 3. Don't talk to boys.*
Patti's parents expect nothing less than the best from their Korean-American daughter. Everything she does affects her chances of getting into an Ivy League school. So winning assistant concertmaster in her All-State violin competition and earning less than 2300 on her SATs is simply not good enough.

Sweethearts by Sara Zarr

When Jenna Vaughn’s childhood sweetheart unexpectedly comes back into her life during her senior year of high school, she is forced to confront her troubled past. This is a story about the power of memory, the bond of friendship, and the quiet resilience of our childhood hearts.


2010 Newberry Medal Winner When You Reach Me by Rebecca Stead

2010 Runner UpsThe Evolution of Calpurnia Tate by Jacqueline Kelly
Where the Mountatin Meets the Moon by Grace Lin
The Mostly True Adventures of Homer P. Figg by Rodman Philbrick

Claudette Colvin: Twice Toward Justice by Phillip Hoose
2010 Michael L. Printz Award Winner Going Bovine by Libba Bray

Runner UpsThe Monstrumologist by Rick Yancey
Punkzilla by Adam Rapp

Charles and Emma: The Darwins Leap of Faith by Deborah Heiligman